St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-07-02

dence Area-Phases of the Ebb and Elow
of the Vast Tide of Humanity. -
| Did you ever see city that was like a
| glacier? Look at New York. 1t has
moved slowly northward for hundred
| years. Hemmed in by two rivers upon
anarrow peninsula geographically called
an island, it has been denied the privilege
of spreading in all directions, a privilege
that belongs to all other cities. 1t has,
therefore, grown as plant grows toward
the light-always in the direction of the
mainland lying on the other side of the
Harlem river.
Consider a moment that this island is
only thirteen miles long, and at its
broadcast point is but two and a half
miles wide, and incloses in that longitu-
dinal space over million souls, and YOU
will at once perceive how great has been
the Typographical influence upon its
development and upon its municipal
character.
1t has been subject from its infancy to
longitudinal pressure that has robbed it
Of some of the characteristics of all other
cities and given it peculiarities that arc
worth considering.
First of all it is prominently the city
of unrest. It has no memorials of its
growth. No mural background No
associations that cling round localities
nd al Nd
With the exception of an oval spot lying
near the Battery and still referred to as
1.-The Bowling Green" and two dust
covered gravel yards on Broadway, that
of irreverent aldermen and enterprising
land-grabbers, it would be difficult tor the
eye to rest anywhere on token of it's
youthful past.
In 1900 the city snuggled round Trim
ity Church. Our fathers buried their
dead in st. Pauls churchyard. Then
they went up town, to what is now
Printing Square, and began laying
the bones of their departed in the grave
yard of the old Brick Church on Nassau
street. But the pressure was too great.
In thirty years they began to take up the
bones and move them up town to Hous-
ton street-then in the tields-and later
the New York Times building rose over
the tombs of the Knickerbockers, and
Hoes presses to-day thunder in the vaults
of our grandfathers.
When those good people consecrated
the burial grounds at Houston street they
believed that the spot would remain sa-
cred to rest forever. In very few years
the pressure overlook them, and once
more they took up the relics of the de-
parted and sadly went up town with
them.
But if there has never been any rest
for the dead on the island neither has
there been any rest for the living. The
same pressure that made the bones of
our forefathers move ON" kept the
homes of the metropolis always shifting.
The social axis of New York has changed
every twenty years. Once it was at
Maiden Lane Then it was at Chambers
street Then it got up to Bond street,
hen to Fourteenth, then to Twenty !
bird. And now to find any homes you
must take the elevated railroad and get
'ut above Forty-second street.
Business, domesticity, culture, wealth |
lave crawled along this peninsula steadily |
n a straight line, always an advance
ruard of residences, palaces, homes; al
ways an arid desert behind warehouses,
hops and offices.
Like those long.necked birds which
re supposed to have but one intestine,
New York stands upon the seashore, it's
lead in Westminster county and its tail
n the bay, and everything passes along
Is alimentary canal of Broadway.
Such city presents aspects of unrest
hat will be found nowhere else in the
'orld. Foreigners who come to it at
ribute the restless, insecure air to the
haracter OF the American people, but if
hey GO to other cities they will find do
lains of beauty, tracts of secure home
leads, places where enterprise rests and
dorns and builds permanent firesides and
liars. But New York, divided into a
ection of compressed business, and
section OF temporary abiding places,
idely separated, is never secure. One
7ctlon is always encroaching on the
Their. The houses of the Hamiltons and
utgers and Beeckmans were built dura-
ly on lower Broadway. They were
'rn down to make way for more dura-
Die and costly banks, insurance offices
nd warehouses. The DeWitts and Clin-
,ns and Astors built handsome houses
4 Fourteenth street and Union Square p
nd then abandoned them when sur
bundled by shops. The Moffat mansion
n Union Square was wonder of prod
,ality when built. 1t gave way to the
resent Century Building, which must {
Ave cost double what was expended on
e home. Mr.. A. T. Stewart spent
million on his white marble mansion
l the corner of Thirtv-fourth street
I'd Fifth avenue. 1t is now de- !
rted and looks like broken savings s
INK. Not home tradition clings to it. {
is as barren of associations as newly
fence. The costly pictures
I'VE been sold and two popular clubs
I'VE had their eyes on the property for :
me time. 1t is perfectly safe to predict :
at within ten years it will be occupied f
a museum or safe deposit company. {
or can any security be vouchsafed for '
e handsome Vanderbilt mansions
CHER up the avenue The present gem s
alton may escape the pressure, but the E
xt generation will find the fashionable /
ilor and the artistic chiropodist en- I
oaching upon them, and they will sell s
let the property and go on farther up I
e island. n
A man might as we'll undertake to t.